Origins Of Cornerstone

Brian Berkowitz and Richard Ilson were also former students of LCS.
Around 1982, they had done some consuling "involving doing a survey of
existing data management systems and also some UI designs for future
products". When they realized that they enjoyed working together and
with their experience, they could make a very good database
themselves.

They began shopping around for a company to help them. They knew the
Infocom people from their MIT days, and they talked to Blank, Berez,
and Vezza about working with Infocom to make such a database. "These
guys claimed that they were always interested [of doing that kind of
software, databases]. Games were a way of kicking off the
company…They felt games were a jumping off point." [Richard Ilson,
Interview]

Both sides felt there was a natural fit. For Berkowitz and Ilson,
Infocom had many connections to distributors and proven success in
publishing software. For Blank, Berez, and Vezza, this was a chance
for Infocom to do something more than making games and create the next
"killer app."

Soon after (in 1982), Brian Berkowitz and Richard Ilson, joined
Infocom to develop some sort of database software. This is how
Cornerstone was born.